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Can a four-engine aircraft with limited fuel gain extra range by shutting down one of its engines?
I was reading the book Vulcan 607 by Rowland White who examines the details of a British bomber's mission during the Falklands War in 1982. At some point, the author wrote about the fuel shortage experienced by the crew of the four-engine Vulcan bomber during their return to their base. The author wrote that the pilot "considered shutting down one of the four Rolls-Royce Conway engines to get a little more range out of the remaining fuel...".
I have not heard of this type of procedure before, so I am wondering if the decision to shut down one of the engines to maximize fuel efficiency makes sense.

I would like to add something  important. The bomber returned after executing a bombing attack. This means that during the return the airplane was considerably lighter.

They were Olympus engines.  Shutting one down might have made sense but not an easy decision.  If they shut one down, then the tanker they were meeting up with would have to loiter for longer and may have itself, run short of fuel and have to return to Ascension.

@Simon :Let's ignore the tanker loiter issue. Why would it make sense to shut down one of the Olympus engines to increase the range of the flight?

I think you'd need a qualified Vulcan pilot to answer that.  My intuitive guess is no.  As Eric points out, you would introduce a lot of drag since the aircraft would be crabbed all the way back.

Questions of the type "Can ..." are always ambiguous. Do you mean the physics, or the legal/regulatory side? I doubt you'll gain range, as the remaining engines may have to produce more power, and you'll get asymmetry, which increases drag. Also related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_268

@ Andreas: I am talking about the physics. After all, I read about this procedure in a book describing a military operation and the puzzling thing is that the author actually interviewed the pilots. The way it is presented in the book, it seems that for some reason the pilot thought that it was a viable option even though he did not implement this technique in the end because according to the author the additional range he would gain was not enough.

As an example answer for the question title: "Can a four-engine aircraft with limited fuel gain extra range by shutting down one of its engines?" I offer the following: In the late 1990s in a 747-200 freighter I departed Santiago, Chile with enough fuel to reach Miami. During our climb, we lost one engine. For scheduling and cost considerations, we decided to continue rather than return. However, the combination of the reduced speed and the much higher fuel burn of the remaining engines of our reduced altitude capability, meant we could not reach Miami, and we landed short at Panama.

possible duplicate of How far can a 777 fly with just one engine at altitude?

By Jeremy Clarkson? Are you sure you don't mean this book by Rowland White? Jeremy Clarkson gave it a review, he didn't write it.

You could, but it would make more sense simply to keep all four engines running and reduce your throttle settings to cruise at your optimal lift/drag ratio.

@fooot: No, that one's about flying on 1 of 2 engines, this is about 3 of 4 engines. You can't avoid asymmetry with 1 of 2 engines.

Assuming the aircraft is always flying at its optimal Lift/Drag ratio (= optimal angle of attack = optimal speed for a given weight and altitude), then the question is:
Is it more efficient to generate a given amount of thrust T with 4 engines x T/4, or 3 engines x T/3?
I would think that in the general case, it is not the case. Specific Fuel Consumption tends to increase with thrust (at constant speed):

Note: the above diagram is for Turbofans (Source: Airplane Aerodynamics and Performance, Roskam). It would be interesting to have similar trends for other types of engines (turboprops, turbojets, piston engines), but I could not find any!
On the other hand, it is possible that, in this particular case, the engines were simply working too far off their design point, so increasing thrust was improving their SFC.
Also, there is a problem with cutting one engine: The pilot will need to counteract the thrust asymmetry with the rudder, and this will have a significant cost in drag. Of course, the pilot could just cut 2 engines instead of one! :-)

I like the idea of cutting two engines. Would they have sufficient thrust available to fly back?

A lightly loaded Vulcan (no bombs, low fuel) can cruise on 2 engines but, at max continuous power which if memory serves, is 102%.   That would burn a lot of fuel.  What I don't know is which gives max range, 4, 3 or 2 engines.  Incidentally, the intakes were reinforced to allow 110% emergency power for war use only.

I'm confused about what your graph is showing. Ignoring sfc for now: The vertical axis is thrust and the horizontal axis is mach num. So the solid lines would indicate that, for a given altitude the engine would produce more thrust at a lower airspeed? That doesn't make sense to me. Then the dotted lines seem to show that the sfc decreases with higher thrust. I'm obviously reading this wrong.

thrust is proportional to the difference of airspeed entering and exiting the engine. This difference is the greatest when the aircraft has zero airspeed. (explaining thrust vs. Ma) 2) thrust is proportional to air density, which decreases with altitude. (explaining thrust vs altitude) 3) Evolution of SFC is harder to explain, and depends very much on engine design, unlike 1) and 2)

Yes, it's usually done by P-3 Orion. While it's usual on the P-3 to shut down engine 1, sometimes engine 4 is shut down, but engine 4 drives a generator, thus the load on the remaining generators increases. Also, the minimum altitude to maintain in flight ASL/AGL increases.
Seems like the Nimrod's crew did the same thing while on patrol. However, we're talking about ASW aircraft, designed for very long patrol/loiter periods while on station.

Since the Nimrod was a converted Comet, it was not really designed for long loiter. But when flying at lower altitude, shutting off one or two engines will let the others (and their intakes and nozzles) run closer to their design point. The P-3 was equally a passenger aircraft in its first life, so the same principle needed to be applied there. A dedicated ASW design has much more aspect ratio than both, compare with the Neptune and the Breguet Atlantique (which won the competition for a Neptune follow-on, but was eventually refused by the US - one reason for France to leave NATO back then).

For turboprops it makes sense since the propellor blades can be put to feather. A trubofan cannot and produces quite a bit of resistance when off.

The P-3 shutting one down is an example of the loitering case where you want to maximize endurance by minimizing fuel burned per hour. That is very different from the situation in the question, which is about maximizing range by minimizing fuel burned per mile.

Obviously a good valid answer, but would be improved by pointing out that a turbofan or turbojet may have different characteristics as noted in comments above.

I would think this would not be practical for two reasons.

The drag caused by the non-running engine coupled with the increased fuel demands of the remaining three would negate any fuel savings.
I'm not sure of the the systems in the Olympus but most jet engines do not have any oil-pressure when windmilling and this can create problems. You may also have problems with accessories On some engines when the engines have been shut done the hydraulics have to be turned on to prevent the engine driven hydraulic pump from heating up. On some PW engines you need to run the fuel pump for 3 mins every hour..

But coming back to the original question, here we are talking about a wartime situation and the mission overrides everything else.. I'm sure the pilots had a lot of time to consider their options.
Wrt drag from the dead engine, the small cross section of the Olympus compared to high-bypass engines would probably have lesser impact. Another factor reducing the impact of the dead engine is that they are located quite near the centre line, requiring less rudder trim to compensate. Less rudder-trim = less drag. So the penalty it may not be as bad as say an A340 or B747.


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What is done to prevent the tail hook from bouncing off the carrier deck?
At 2:20 of this video, it appears that the tail hook of the F7U-3 bounces off the flight deck a couple of times before catching a wire. Does this still happen with more modern fighters or has something been done to prevent this from happening?
Note: at some point after this, there is a fatal ramp strike incident.

This is called a "hook skip bolter". Tail hooks have dampening systems to help prevent that, but a lot of it I think is just downward pressure from the hook lowering system. I'm trying to find a diagram that shows how it works...

From what I read, having the correct airspeed (and thus AoA) will ensure the aircraft is at a proper attitude for the tail hook to work correctly

Please don't make edits to closed posts if the edit doesn't fix the reason the post was closed. Upper-casing that person's "I"s just took up a bunch of people's time by causing a reopen vote.

The tailhook assembly on a modern carrier or terrestrial fighter has a hydraulic damping assembly which forces the hook to stay extended and dampens the impact of the hook into the runway or flight deck.  Without it the hook would bounce off the deck on impact and potentially strike the tail of the aircraft.
This was a major problem during early ship trials of the F-35C airplane the first time it went out to the boat, resulting in an unacceptable 30% boarding rate due to a faulty tailhook design.  The tailhook assembly has since been redesigned and worked well during later sea trials of the jet.
This damping assembly is quite powerful and can injure or kill careless personnel should the uplock accidentally disengage, hence the DANGER TAILHOOK markings on the aft fuselage of some navy aircraft.
The system will handle most landings; on occasion a pilot slams the jet down hard enough that the hook will jump off the deck missing all of the wires.  This is called a hook skip.  It is handled just like any other bolter: Full power at touchdown and go around to enter the bolter pattern for another try.

F-35C problems in detail: https://theaviationist.com/2012/01/09/f-35c-hook-problems/

At least one of three aircraft I flew with a tailhook used pneumatic pressure.  (EA-6B, hydraulically retracted, extended by gravity and pneumatic pressure)  Hydraulic doesn't really make sense because it is incompressible.  Do you know that this is a fact for any aircraft?  If not I would consider changing this...

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What is the offset in a seaplane's hull?
I noticed there is a little offset in a seaplane's hull (highlighted in the following picture). I suppose this is useful as it exists in all the seaplanes I know.
It appears to be neither a hydrodynamic nor aerodynamic feature. I could not find clue by myself as I don't know this feature's name.
My question, what is its name and purpose?

(wikimedia.org)

That's called the step. Without it, you'd have to fight against the buoyancy of the rear end of the hull when you rotate for takeoff.

However, a seaplane float or hull must be designed to permit the seaplane to be rotated or pitched up to increase the wing's angle of attack and gain the most lift for takeoffs and landings. Thus, the underside of the float or hull has a sudden break in its longitudinal lines at the approximate point around which the seaplane rotates into the lift off attitude. This break, called a "step," also provides a means of interrupting the capillary or adhesive properties of the water.
The water can then flow freely behind the step, resulting in minimum surface friction so the seaplane can lift out of the water. The steps are located slightly behind the airplane's centre of gravity, approximately at the point where the main wheels of a landplane are located. If the steps were located to[o] far aft or forward of this point, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to rotate the airplane into a pitch-up attitude prior to planing (rising partly out of the water while moving at high speed) or lift off. Although steps are necessary, the sharp break along the float's or hull's underside causes structural stress concentration, and in flight produces considerable drag because of the eddying turbulence it creates in the airflow.

Re the drag in flight, an obvious question would be whether anyone had a retractable fairing behind the step to solve that problem? I hit Google and found a few places speculating about that (including US patent US6042052A in 1998), but no evidence of designers actually using one.

@Graham I think the demand for better sea planes died around the time the Sea Dart and the Caspian Sea Monster. (Both of which incidentally had a different solution to the lift off from water problem than the step.) So lots of cool ideas but nobody to pay for actually using them.

@VilleNiemi Yes, that was my thinking too. It did seem like something they could have tried before then, but I guess no-one did.

A retractable fairing would complicate the design:  the fairing has to seal perfectly against the step when it's extended, otherwise you're creating a giant scoop. It has to be sturdy enough not to be ripped off by the water. etc.

No, the angled part allows for rotating. The step reduces water drag.

@Graham The Sea Dart had sort of the opposite solution - retractable skis that formed, in essence, a retractable step. In flight they folded flat against the hull.

As everybody has said, it's called a 'step'.
But it's nothing to do with buoyancy, it's to do with the opposite effect - water suction. Without the step you will never get the airplane off the water simply due to the suction of the water clinging onto the airplane.
The step forces a break in the water-suction, in the case of the Catalina above probably halving it, which then allows the lift of the airplane to overpower the remaining water suction.

Landing and taking off is done on the step.  During the takeoff, the aircraft is rotated forward until it is planing on the float or hull portion forward of the step; less surface is in contact with the water.  A notable increase in acceleration can be felt as the aircraft rises and rotates onto the step, and then a further slingshot effect felt as the remaining drag ends as the float or hull separates entirely from the water.
Land is the reverse; the landing is made on the step, or the section of the float or hull forward of the step; high speed water taxi is done "on the step," and low speed taxi is done by reducing power until the aircraft sinks deeper into the water in a condition known as "plowing."
The step is a hydrodynamic feature which causes a break in laminar flow along the float or hull; with an adequate increase in speed this serves to decrease drag along the portion of the hull or float aft of the step.  For simplicity when flying seaplanes, operation on the forward area is simply referred to as "on the step."

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Are the instrument panels in the cockpit spill / waterproof?
There are multiple switches and buttons in the cockpit, with different shapes and layouts. Are they spill proof?
What if the pilot spills water or coffee on them, will they still function?

You know, I've flown for over two thousand hours and never thought of this.  Good question!

Thanks, because at first I was thought it might be too stupid to ask such a question.

See the 1960's movie, "Fate is the Hunter"...

No, they are definitely not. Aircraft technology has sort of a stone age feel to it. Its not like a Sony media deck or something. In some aircraft like crop dusters and stuff there are even no panels, so there are tubes and wires running everywhere along the walls. You are thinking, boy I hope I don't bump into that gas line. Its like a Kafka novel.

Perhaps it would be cheaper to have the pilots drink from sippy cups instead.

My instruments are all mounted in vertical panels in front of me, there is no unintentional way to splash stuff forward on to any instruments, gages, displays, switches, etc. Only the fuel selector on the floor is subject to any wetness, and it's a sealed unit, so a spill would not bother it.  I've owned the plane since 1996 and nothing has even been spilled. Drinks have been from bottles with screw-on lids, and we don't tend to have more than a snack during a 3 to 3.5 hr flight.

No, and that's why you never make jokes in the cockpit. *8P

No they are not, at least not fully. There have been instances of equipment failure caused by coffee spills, resulting in the need to abort the flight.
This example shows a flight that needed to divert because a coffee spill disabled the communication equipment.
This Boeing 707 had to make an emergency landing after the crew inadvertently spilled water on the autopilot panel causing the stabilizer trim wheel started to rotate. Control was lost as the plane pitched up and down. Three people died in the accident.
This Boeing 737 report had smoke in the cockpit because the previous flight crew spilled coffee and sugar over the avionics.
This Boeing 720 suffered control problems (resulting in Dutch roll) after a coffee spill cause a short circuit in the yaw damper.
This Airbus A330 diverted for an emergency landing after liquid was spilled onto electronic devices in the cockpit causing the smoke.

Source: Transport Accident Investigation Commission of New Zealand

Good explanation. Does this mean there are regulations by FAA, on what type of food /drinks a pilot can consume in the cockpit, or is it a known issue, which we all have to live with?

As far as I know there are no limitations to what type of food/drinks a pilot can consume in the cockpit based on this hazard. It's a relatively rare occurrence. There are some recommendations on designing and testing for protection against spills of beverages, but nothing strict.

I find this weird. The equipment is tested for so many things, and even making it moderately spill proof doesn't add that much to the already enourmous costs. And given that pilots regularly eat and drink, it makes me wonder if there is not maybe another reason why it is not done.

@PlasmaHH I'm more surprised that pilots simply don't use spill-proof cups. C'mon, you give several hundred cups to the people on board and you can't afford couple cups with good lids for the crew? ...

@yo': are those still spillproof when they slam at the windshield turing turbulences? What about spraying it all over the avionics because you couldn't hold it anymore since the chief steward told such a dirty joke? And I doubt they have invented spill proof tables for the food yet... ^^

@PlasmaHH Food is less a problem. I've got pasta with sauce on my notebook and I didn't worry, just fliped it upside-down instantly and cleaned it with napkins, but coffee has already almost destroyed it. And for spill-proof cups, think baby-bottle, but with not a babyish shape and with a straw instead of a nipple. Actually, if you cut a larger hole in the nipple and put a straw through it, the result is very convenient and very spill-proof (says a scoutmaster that saw it used in some "violent" scout game).

@yo': I have seen quite liquid sauces being served in airplanes, and passengers rarely like it if the avionics is turned upside down to clean it with a napkin. That said, notebooks are made for toleraing a little more dirt, the ways from they keyboard into the electronics is often hard if not impossible to penetrate by pasta sauce. But imainge an avionics panel with the sauce already in the relatively big slits, impossible to clean, and slowly dripping down, causing high impedance shorts that turn into low impedance carbon and sparks three weeks later...

@yo' So if the pilot spills pasta on the controls should he just turn the plane upside down and give a good shake?

@PlasmaHH I was implying that a sauce is slow to propagate anywhere, leaving you time to remove it. I should have made myself more clear.

@yo': my point is that you don't have the time. It already made its way into the innermost parts of your device. You were lucky with yours, but the pathway into vital electronics is much less obstructed than for your notebook. Also a lot of sauces have a much lower viscosity than average pasta sauce. There is always a decent chance that as soon as it hit the avionics, something went into it.

Ironically, probably the only thing that electronic equipment doesn't mind being spilled on it is liquor.

@DeltaLima : Does a rare occurrence event not given much importance in the aviation industry, or do they need something catastrophic to happen for their attention ?

@Firee Things are balanced based on risk assessments. A rare occurrence can be very important if the potential outcome is very likely to be catastrophic. But you don't necessarily need a rule or regulation to improve safety. Avionics panels build today have much better ingress protection that those from the '80s, I imagine that most manufacturers nowadays will throw coffee over their products as part of testing.

@CaptainCodeman yup, flip it upside down and find some turbulence, you'll be right as rain.

The 737s really had a bad day...

On a side note. It always appears when flying coach that turbulence always increases just as they serve the coffee. I always figured it was because the pilot is flying with one hand.... or his knee..  when they used to allow smoking on board.. J/K

That third one was a 720B (a development of the 707), not a 737.

On the old Zeppelins all electrical switches were enclosed, with the actual switching contacts submerged in oil to avoid sparks. And Zeppelins had a lot of switches, containing much more electrical equipment than typical aircraft of their times. All these switches were also spill-proof by design. Airship engineering seems to be a lost art ...

Left: Radio operator of a WW I Zeppelin at his equipment, right: Elektroraum of the LZ 127.

Zeppelins were also notoriously flammable. I don't think there have been enough cases to justify fully insulating electronics against liquids.

In college, I worked at a large power transformer factory and they used oil as electrical insulation. The fact that oil is an electrical insulator is still mystifying to me. Probably a better question for chemistry.SE or electronics.SE...

Zeppelins LOL +1

I'd guess that the decision to do this had something to do with the giant volume of Hydrogen gas, which had a nasty habit of quickly becoming water plus heat in the presence of sparks.

You can imagine that battleships had much better spark protection in their powder magazine than on the bridge, for a similar reason.

@FreeMan It depends on the oil. Transformers don't use oil only because of insulating purposes (although this is the case as well), but they use it for coolant as well, considering that mineral oil is typically a better conductor of heat as compared to air. If a transformer loses its oil, it'll overheat, or arc internally, and melt.

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Why is the planned Kingdom Tower Skydeck unsuitable for use as a helipad?
Why is the planned Kingdom Tower Skydeck unsuitable for use as a helipad? Originally the skydeck was supposed to be a helipad, but this idea was subsequently rejected and the feature was repurposed as a "sky deck" when it was discovered that it was not usable as a helipad, recalling another failed aviation docking boondoggle, the airship mooring mast on the Empire State Building.

My brain had a very hard time processing that right hand image. At first I thought it was a closeup of the rotor folding mechanism of some helicopter, and I couldn't figure out why it was included. I now realize that it's a top-down view of the building, but my brain still doesn't want to go there - it still looks like a closeup of some mechanical device. /totally off-topic.

This just another case of an engineer destroying the dreams of an architect with reality.

Changes in wind speed/direction always cause turbulence and swirl around buildings which are unanticipated and random.  I'm amazed that they didn't ask a helicopter pilot before even proposing it.  One look at that and most pilots would laugh.

@FreeMan: I say it looks like some sort of spacecraft docking port.

@Simon Not to mention that since it doesn't appear to be on the top of the building, there isn't a lot of margin for error if you are pushed towards the building.

A quote from The Guardian:

A Starship Enterprise-like circular helipad, 30m across, protrudes out at level 157. This was originally designed to provide fast access to the penthouse, but the wind makes it a dangerous place to land, so instead it has become an observation deck – the world’s highest at 630m.

link (emphasis by me)
Helicopter prefers steady wind condition in order to land safely and comfortably. The nature of wind at such height is gusty and turbulent due to proximity to the building itself. It would be unsafe and very uncomfortable to the rich man who rides the chopper for 'quick access' to the penthouse on that floor. The highest helipad now is at 438 meters high at that is at the TOP of the building.

Please cite an authoritative source for this statement: "Helicopter prefers steady wind"

@rbp i will look for good source after this weekend. I will be out of town. My meaning of steady wind is fairly constant wind, not gusty and vary in dirextion and speed wind. That way pilot can make correction for wind velocity. If the wind is unsteady it would be difficult to judge the amount of input needed. I do not mean pilot prefer to have headwind than no wind.

the reason you can't find an authoritative source is because its not true

@rbp: I think he means that the pilot prefers that the wind be steady, because it makes it easier to land.

Unfortunately, the link to the list of highest helipads in the world is now dead.


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Has anyone ever been penalised for buzzing a control tower?
Has there ever been a pilot who was caught and penalised for performing a "circus stunt fly-by" next to a control tower?
To clarify the question:

I mean legal actions took place; for example arrested, license revoked, attended a court martial (if the person is in military service)
the action must have been unapproved, possibly illegal. Pre-arranged fly-bys, such as air-shows, or the ones used to film Top Gun, do not count.

For others coming from hot network questions and confused, to buzz means to fly an aircraft very low over (an object): to buzz a ship.

I can only think of Tom Cruise.

Not sure if it would be considered "buzzing the tower" or that the pilot was "penalized" in the way you intend, but this crash was partially due to the pilot's wanting to show off to the control tower.

Sorry for using up a comment, but someone has to do this.  OK, me then.  "Negative Ghostrider.  The pattern is full".

Well, there's always someone.In January 1954, American TV and Radio personality Arthur Godfrey buzzed the Teterboro control tower with his Douglas DC-3, resulting in the suspension of his license:

In the mid 1950’s, Arthur Godfrey was preparing to take off from Teterboro Airport in his private DC-3. He requested a take off on a runway which was into the wind.  The tower refused his request and instructed him to use a runway which had a sizeable crosswind. He complied, but he buzzed the tower, almost running into it. The tower personnel dove for cover and reported him. After a long hassle, Godfrey had his license suspended for six months.

And he wrote a song about it.
Back then, you lost your license. If you try that stunt now, your chances of ending up in a black site are frighteningly real, as Shaun Lees, an amateur pilot found out:

... (Lees) chartered the helicopter from another airport, landed at Coventry, where his actions effectively closed it down, then flew toward the control tower.
Hovering close to it, he announced over the radio, "you are going to see the very worst of my flying", then started to circle.

He got sent to the jail for three years, with

... Judge Marten Coates told Shaun Lees, a 41-year-old electrician, what he had done was "practically an act of terrorism".

haha, voted up just for the amazing song you made me discover (Teterboro Tower). Thank you for that!

The 'black site' part seems rather like an exaggeration, but that particular case also seems like a bit more than just buzzing the tower. His radio announcement sounds rather like a threat, especially when made while circling the tower. I rather doubt the same punishment would be given (or even the same laws would be violated) if he had done something more like in Godfrey's situation.

He requested a take off on a runway, which was into the wind. The tower refused his request and instructed him to use a runway, which had a sizeable crosswind. what a confusing sentence

@Azor-Ahai: not to me.

Yeah, they don't really have a sense of humour in Coventry. Anyone who's used their ring road will testify to that.

@Azor-Ahai it makes perfect sense to a pilot: basically, Godfrey wanted to take off on the runway that was easier to take off on, but the tower directed him to the one that would have taken more work for him to get flying safely.  What I don't understand is why they would make him take off in a crosswind when there was a runway available with a headwind.  But I guess they had their reasons.

The confusing part is not the content of the sentences but their punctuation and structure. It would read much more clearly if the two commas were removed, or if the indefinite articles were changed, as in "...one runway, which was into the wind...another runway, which had...".

@kristen i understand the intent. But amalloy is correct i was confused by the two "a runway"s and the commas

You could say he was sent to Coventry. (obsolete Br. Eng. phrase for someone being censured)

Not a control tower, but how about the press box of a university football stadium... while a game was being played.
During the University of Florida vs. Kentucky football game in November, 1985 a B-25 buzzed the field.

SUN 11/24/1985 HOUSTON CHRONICLE, Section 3, Page 16, 2 STAR Edition
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - A World War II-era bomber that buzzed a stadium during a university football game was making its final flight before being turned over to Smithsonian Institution, its owner and pilot says.
  "It was a perfect day. We had made several passes in the country, and the airplane felt good," John Marshall said.
  "It was a last hurrah - the airplane is going to the Smithsonian. She had a good home in Florida, and we wanted to say good-bye."
  Marshall, a radiologist who lives in Ocala, could lose his pilot's license and be fined $1,000 for buzzing Florida Field, where 72,000 were attending the Florida-Kentucky game.
  The pilot acknowledged that he violated a Federal Aviation Administration regulation that requires planes to maintain a 1,000-foot altitude when flying above a crowd. But he said there was "no malicious intent" involved.
  The B-25, named "Carol Jean," which appeared in the movie "Catch- 22" as "Luscious Lulu," was received eagerly by officials at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum.
  "We have long been searching for a B-25. We've been purposely holding back to find a good one," said Tim Wooldridge, the museum's aeronautics department chairman.

Edit now that I've got my 2 accounts merged... I was there at the game.  It was AWESOME!  I was down closer to the field, so I'm not sure if they actually got below the edge of the stadium or below the roof line of the pressbox/skybox (The Swamp was much smaller then).  A former coworker (now dead for 10 years...) claimed to have been in the plane as a passenger and that they were below the level of the press box and actually dipped down into the "bowl" of the field, but I doubt the truth of those statements.

So was he fined or what?

Probably not what you are looking for, but Flight Lieutenant Alan Pollock beat-up the Houses of Parliament and flew under Tower Bridge in London in 1968.  He also 'visited' a number of RAF airfields at low level and inverted. He was arrested, put on a charge and invalided out of the RAF rather than court martialed


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Why keep the doors open for aircraft in boneyards?

Photo by Bastian Ding from airliners.net
The image above shows Boeing 747s stored in a boneyard.
Why are the aircraft left with the doors open? Won't this increase the probability of further damage and/or faster corrosion?

Compare to the neighboring 747, where the doors are intact. It appears tha the doors and their hardware have been cut from the airframe, rather than simply left open. The aircraft in question is likely being scrapped.

the only aircraft parked there with the doors open is the 737 in the bottom right. The 747 has no doors left, the others have their doors closed.

Even the engines are gone

"Free to a good home!"

Scrapped aircraft are often cannibalized for parts, it's possible that the parts that were needed from this specific aircraft were the doors.

The photo provided in the question points to Victorville  boneyard, and some detective work using the partially visible registration indicates the 747 in the picture to be G-BNLU. Some digging on the reg shows us it was withdrawn in 2014

Withdrawn British Airways Boeing 747-436 G-BNLU positioned Cardiff-Wales – Victorville this morning as BA9156.

It seems that at various times there have been 7 BA 747's stored at victorville

747-400s; G-BNLA, B, C, D, G, H, U

And at least one has visited Victorville for a refit

I was on airliners.net reading some posts/threads and I read one: G-BNLV is back from the desert!!

(Both above quotes from this thread)
Which lends weight to my original assertion of cannibalization, however nothing concrete as to whether U provided new doors to V.

Looks like they took the entire door frames and structure, not just the doors.

@Gerry - yes it does, this is obviously just a guess but perhaps they needed the entire structure such as hinges, locks, even escape chute mechanism etc.

Protection from nature is one reason why places like Victorville are chosen. The climate is naturally warm and dry, which helps to prevent corrosion. If there is any residual moisture in the aircraft, leaving it open will help to dry it out.
While the aircraft could still suffer from dust and debris blowing inside, that's probably not important. If they are to the point of cutting large parts of structure out of the plane, they're probably not too concerned about the inside getting a little dirty. It's basically like a totalled car in a junkyard.
The aircraft are parked inside the airport area, which is out in the desert, so the perimeter is fairly secure. Even if someone did get in, the open areas on the 747 are at least 20 feet above the ground, so it makes it even more difficult for someone to get inside. If they could climb that high, a door wouldn't do much to stop them anyway, as they're not designed to be locked.
When an owner does plan on the aircraft flying again, they put a lot more effort into covering and sealing vulnerable parts of the aircraft. You can also see this with the China Airlines 747 in the background, which has covers on the engines and tires.


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What is this on the starboard engine of the Dash 8?
On the inside of the starboard engine of the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 there is a small aerofoil shaped object* protruding from the casing. There also appears to be pipes protruding from the end of it.
Can anyone identify what this is and explain its function?

** Probably not an aerofoil just looks vaguely like one.

It is the engine drain mast. From the Dash 8 Series 400 airport planning document - Chapter 2, Page 40:

Dash 8 engine drain; image from Dash 8 Series 400 airport planning document
Basically, the drain mast houses the drains that allow for the removal of the fluids (oil and fuel) that come out of the engine, due to seepage, leaks etc. For example, this incident report is a case where it was,

... observed ... fuel dripping from RH engine drain mast.

And what does it do? Can you explain it's function?

@JonathanWalters it drains the engine, obviously! :) Of what, I haven't a clue...

@JonathanWalters Oil can get "hidden" in various places inside a running engine, but after shut-down finds its way to the lowest point, which may not be back into the oil tank. Fuel systems can also develop minor leaks, like any other plumbing system. The drain system is there to get the unwanted fluids out of the way before the engine is restarted - you don't want pools of flammable liquid sitting around where they shouldn't be. Anti-icing operations on the ground, washing the fan blades for inspection after foreign object ingestion, etc, may also cause fluid to get into engines by accident.

It's a drain, as explained previously... PW100 series tend to leak a lot of oil as part of their design, so this is a drain where leaks from normal, healthy, places can come out. The design of the drain keeps the oil away from the nacelle so it's easier to differentiate normal oil seepage from an abnormal leak... which would spread orange oil all over the nacelle cowling. (A bit of oil coating everything is not that abnormal, a lot could be cause for concern, or at least checking the oil level of the engine)

Welcome to Aviation.se!


text:
Is it a literal hood that's used to simulate IMC?
I know this is a basic question, but a lot of Q&As on here talk about being "under the hood" to simulate IMC.
My question is, is this a literal hood? Can someone please explain what this actually means to a non-pilot?

Here is what most IFR hoods look like, you can also look up things like "Foggles".

It's not exactly a hood, more of a specially shaped visor, or your instructor can stick a map on the window.

@GdD you're kidding with the map, right? Because that's no longer simulated IMC...

Not joking @egid, it was only the part in front of me, the other side was kept clear so the instructor could see. It worked.

I see. I'm fairly certain that is not legal in the eyes of the FAA.

When you read or hear the term "under the hood" as it relates to simulated IMC, it may or may not be an actual hood. The FAA does not require a hood, instead the FAA calls for a "view limiting device." Often the view limiting device used is a hood such as the ones depicted below. However, other view limiting devices can also be used, such as glasses with an opaque coating that limits your view such as the ones depicted in the last picture below the hoods.
Checkout this "superhood" at Sporty's!

This is the type I used for my IFR certificate back in the day.

This is another type of view limiting device that can be used to simulate IMC. It is commonly still referred to as "under the hood" or as "hood-word", but as you can see these are not a hood. There is a name brand of glasses like these called "foggles." And most people refer to these as "foggles", although, these, are a different brand.

Yes, old style view limiting devices were typically a light plastic hat like device, which was translucent, to simulate clouds I suppose. It was typically on a pivot so it could still be worn while the view was not limited. It was called a hood.
Today a popular replacement is white with a clear cutout for viewing instruments, and it fits on glasses or sunglasses.  Foggles are more common, and I have students make them out of safety glasses.  Newer view limiting wear was less expensive, and tends to work better with headsets than a traditional hood.
Years ago, I used a pair of industrial safety glasses with translucent tape, to be my view limiting device. I also put translucent tape on the side shields They were more comfortable than what was commercially available for pilots at the time.

The old hoods were rather sophisticated with adjustable headbands and flipping hoods, and a price to match.

With this one, everything was under the hood.

That's a good looking Link Trainer! Is it operational?
I crashed ours a couple of time in cadets. :(

They have it cordoned off and I wasn't allowed to inspect it, but I was told that it is completely restored and operational. I like the wings :)

Yes, most pilots practice flying in simulated instrument condition using a view limiting device, sometimes in the form of a hood, though the newer translucent eyeglasses e.g. Foggles, etc are becoming more and more popular for this purpose.
Another method which is preferred by the US military and other militaries are out the world for instrument training is a retractable curtain which covers all the windows or canopy enclosures in an aircraft, preventing the student pilot from looking outside the airplane.

AIUI civilian simulated instrument flight requires a safety pilot who can look out for vfr aircraft in the area. It seems to me (as a non-pilot) that this would effectively rule out the curtain approach.

Not if you're doing it in a T-38 with the student in the back seat under the shroud.

Some air forces also have (had?) lead-lined curtains for their nuclear bombers to protect the crew from radiation.

I don't know about lead lined, but they did have curtains to p protect the crews from flash blindness when a nuclear weapon detonated.


text:
Where can aircraft carriers carry out air operations?
I'm interested in any military or civil airspace regulations about where aircraft carriers are allowed to launch and retrieve aircraft.
For example, are fixed wing aircraft allowed to take off from an aircraft carrier while it is docked in port?
I would imagine (though could be wrong) land-based ATC and airspace conflicts have to be managed, amongst other issues.

You generally want to be underway when launching fixed-wing aircraft so that you get the most airspeed possible for take-off.

@SMSvonderTann that makes sense. I was wondering if there's any regulations that effect where it can they can take off though.

@KorvinStarmast nice! How do they coordinate though?

I don't know what permissions are required (guessing a fair bit of paperwork, involving not only the FAA but also port authorities), but taking off in port (in this case, a museum ship) has been done.  The USS Midway was stationary, looks like minimal wind, but on the other hand an acrobatic plane with lots of power. (Youtube)

Nice video! Do you have any other information on this? It doesn't look like they used the normal ship ATC.

@Notts90 This was probably conducted under an airshow TFR, which means that they closed the airspace around the vessel specifically for this demonstration. In that case the pilot only needed to coordinate with somebody running the airshow.

I don't have any more information, but suspect the airshow TFR is probably correct.

The real question is how did they get the plane on the deck in the first place. ;)

@FreeMan Since they are competition aircraft they don't typically fly them cross-country. The wings and tail are easily removed and they are put into covered trailers or transport pallets. You can see how it is done on the Red Bull Air Race website or Aviation Buzz Word. It was probably lifted onto the deck with a crane.

@RonBeyer - I assumed it was hoisted on deck, but it's much more fun to think of it landing there on its own! After all, there are all those Alaska bush pilots who could get in a full day's worth of touch-n-go practice on one pass down the deck... :)

@Freeman how did they get the plane on the deck in the first place. The same way they got an SR-71 onto the Intrepid. ;-)

Most carrier operations are carried out beyond the 12 nautical mile boundary in international waters.  This means international airspace as well, so Class A, B, etc. categories don't apply.
For training exercises conducted off the US coastline they operate in the off-shore Warning areas depicted in aviation charts.
When deployed it's much the same, crews are briefed on local airspace restrictions before each flight.
Fixed wing flight operations are never conducted while tied up in port for reasons that have nothing to do with civil airspace.


text:
Where can I find Boeing 777 safety records?
I have booked flights for our family to travel Australia - Europe return with EK.  My nine year old son is an aviation geek and since learning some details of the EK B777 crash in DXB (and also the OZ 214 crash)   he has become very concerned about flying B777.  I took that into account when booking flights and booked A380s all the way through (booked with QF due to airpoints but EK flights) but since booking the DXB - PER flight is now showing as a B777-300ER.  He is in tears and refusing to fly on it.  He is prone to some anxiety and is adamant that he won't be getting on the B777.
Is there anyone that can alleviate his fears?  I have read and read articles out to him (which is how I ended up here) but he won't hear any of it.
My only hope is if someone with actual knowledge can provide some safety information that will convince him that it the B777 is a safe aircraft.
Many thanks in advance.

The biggest factor in safety are the humans maintaining and operating the aircraft. Maybe you focus on the accident record of a particular airline and not on that of a particular type. However, since the fear of your son is based on emotions, I wonder how this very rational site can help. I guess you already read this to him, and it seems it did not help.

Welcome to Aviation.SE! If the aircraft type was even suspected of being unsafe it would be grounded. Look at the B787 battery issue when it first launched, the whole fleet was grounded. That said if you've already explained that, not much we say from a technical point is likely to change his mind. I think his problem is more psychological. You might want to post a question on the Parenting Stack Exchange site, they are good at these sort of issues.

https://www.google.com/search?q=777+accident+fatality+rate

I hope you don't mind but I've made an edit to make you're question less likely to be closed as off-topic. Hopefully still gets the response you need.

Also, per Wikipedia: "The 777 has been involved in six hull losses as of October 2016; the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 accident in July 2013 was its first fatal crash in 18 years of service." It has now been in service for 21 years. It is far and away statistically one of the safest types to fly on. Nearly all of the fatalities were from MH370 (probably hijack) and MH17 (missile); the Dubai crash had none. That should speak volumes.

There has been 100,000 flights yesterday, the same the day before... no B777 crashed as far as I know. If you do the same for your car model, you'll be frightened. Safety if by far a bigger concern for aviation manufacturers and authorities than for other transportation means.

This might be better handled by http://parenting.stackexchange.com/ to be honest! No amount of aviation geekery is going to alieve your sons anxiety.

It is an incontrovertible, logically and statistically proven fact that the safest part of your journey, by orders of magnitude, begins when you board the aircraft and ends when you disembark. A rational approach might be to ask the same questions of the taxi/bus/train you will use to get to the airport since that is the highest risk portion of the journey.  All modern aircraft operated by major airlines are safe as long as you understand that nothing in life has zero risk.

Provide some statistics showing how much more dangerous driving in a car is. Air travel is by far the safest form of travel by miles traveled vs fatalities.

@scotty3785 the risk being he won't then get in the car :)

The Boeing 777 has an excellent reputation when it comes to safety.
Just under 1500 have been built which have accumulated more than five million flights and 20 million flight hours.
Only 6 aircraft have been lost in a accident, which is a really low number considering the number of aircraft and flights.
Moreover, of those hull losses, at least one (MH17) was due to a criminal act which cannot be attributed to the safety of this specific aircraft type.
Of the other 5 hull losses:

One cause is unknown (MH370).
One (MS667) was caused by fire while the aircraft was at the gate. No fatalities.
Three crashes were during landing.

Of the three crashes during landing:

One (BA038) is caused by ice in the fuel system which clogged a filter. The filter has been redesigned and can no longer cause a problem. The accident did injure 47 people, there were no fatalities.
One (OZ214) was caused by the pilots committing a number of minor and major errors during the approach to the airport. It can hardly be attributed to the aircraft type. The crash resulted in only 3 fatalities, which is remarkable considering the violence of the crash and amount of damage to the aircraft.
The last accident (EK521) caused no fatalities among the passengers but the cause of the accident is still under investigation. So far, the  Investigation  is  working  to determine  and analyze  the  human  performance  factors  that  influenced  flight  crew  actions  during  the  landing and attempted  go-around. The investigation has revealed no  Aircraft systems  or  engine  abnormalities  up  to  the  time  of the  Accident.

Combined you can see that the aircraft has performed an enormous number of flights with very few severe accidents and very few fatalities.
It is considered as one of the safest aircraft around.

Indeed, the Boeing 777 had nearly 20 years of passenger service on over 1,000 airframes before the first passenger death occurred. And that was due to bad piloting, not anything to do with the airframe.

@DeltaLima Where did you find these stats (e.g. "1500 have been built which have accumulated more than five million flights and 20 million flight hours. Only 6 aircraft have been lost in a accident")? Thanks.

FYI: The Wikipedia page you linked states three fatalities, not two, for OZ214: "two passengers died at the crash scene, and a third died in a hospital several days later".

@Makyen Only 2 were from the crash. The other was hit by a fire truck after she was outside of the aircraft.

@Ryan Here's the source for deliveries. These are also listed on the wiki for the 777.

@reirab, Corner concluded not dead prior to being run over by rescue vehicle, but the attorney's office concluded she was already dead. Without more info, no way for us to know if possible for her to have survived if not run over, which arguably should be the standard. Frankly, IMO arguing that her death should not be attributed to the accident to be biased. Which does not matter for this discussion. She was a passenger. She died as a direct result of the accident at the scene. If she died in an auto crash in an ambulance once left the scene, that might be arguable, but IMO, this is not.

@reirab, The official NTSB report concludes "Three of
the 291 passengers were fatally injured". To me that is conclusive.

@Makyen: this question is about the safety of the aircraft. If a passenger died after the accident and not due to injuries sustained in the accident, such death should not count against the aircraft safety record.

@ryan the flights and flight time numbers I have from this article and extrapolated to today's numbers.

@MartinArgerami, While I agree with what you actually wrote, this specific case has already been officially determined. Your statement implies arguing against the NTSB Accident Report. By doing so you effectively are saying that you know more about the accident then the official investigators. You are welcome to your opinion. I'm not going to argue it, because my point of view is that there is no room for arguing wrt. this specific case, and this is not a forum where we should be discussing beyond the current answer.

This is not a direct answer to your request, but it might help in your child's plight.

Go to Flight Radar 24.
To the right of the page, click on the funnel that opens the "Filters" dialog.
Below "add new filter", select "aircraft", and write "B77" in the box beside
Click the "+" icon.

After the above steps and zooming in and out, you'll be watching in real time all the hundreds of B777 that are on the air at any moment (at the precise moment I'm writing this, there are 624 in the air). This happens every day, every hour, no exceptions. Maybe that way you can convey to him how safe it is to fly these days.
The other suggestion might not work well because fear is fairly irrational, but here it is: just compare (for any country) the number of fatalities in air crashes with, say, the number of fatalities in car crashes. The way I see it, that should convince anybody that it is probably safer to be inside a commercial plane than anywhere else on earth.

In the document Statistical Summary of Commercial Jet Airplane Accidents
Worldwide Operations | 1959–2015 summary, here, the page 19 has the table Accident Rates by Airplane Type that includes 777 among many other types. It looks pretty good there.

It would be best to include at least enough information in your answer to show that it looks good. If the link dies your answer has nothing to support it.

The question is where to find, not if it is good.

All of the other answers have provided the actual information, not just a link.


text:
Is it right to call out out “50...40..30..RETARD” in a C172 simulator?
Playing flight simulator in a C172 (since we don't have any in my local schools) and the 'co-pilot' I fly with (only know him online) insists on calling out "50...40..30..RETARD, RETARD".
I know airbus does this automatically, but it annoys me and puts me off, but he argues that we still need to do it to remember to reduce throttle and flare.
Is he right? Would this be acceptable in a real lesson?

@ymb1 He eyeballs it I guess, also I (think) there are add-ons for FS that let you use virtual instruments not native to the aircraft type on your local machine... title edited

Why do you have the power on at all as you approach 20' altitude in a Cessna 172?

You're kinda doing it wrong if you're flying a C-172 like an airliner.  If your buddy really wants to do that stuff, why not do an Airbus sim?

@JohnK You beat me to it, by 61 seconds...

@JohnK I think it's because neither of us have aspirations to fly one IRL. So really, we are trying to 'practice' for the real world. Unfortunately, people horse around a lot, making realism hard to attain. (If I flew an Airbus with him, he'd bank at 90 degrees to show 'it can be done')...

@Cloud If you want to have a flying partner for your simulator flying, then find someone who shares your goals. There's nothing wrong in treating a flight simulator as a game, and pushing it to the limit (or beyond). However, doing so is generally not conducive to developing good piloting skills. (One flight simulator tutorial I found at one point put it well in saying something like: decide up front for each flight if you want to fool around, or if you want to fly seriously, but do not do both at the same time.)

@Cloud just use the flying lessons built into FSX by yourself.  They aren't bad.

A lower glide slope angle would have a little power in for a 172.  It also depended on how they set the idle RPMs at the school.  Even if you cut the throttle completely, a few extra RPMs would affect the "glide".  But RPMs really could be fine tuned to control aiming point power on, flaps you only have 0, 10, 20, 30. (Learning to slip helped here).  But landing without throttle was great practice for "emergency engine out".  At 60 - 65 knots right on target, I would not do anything on short final but round correctly before pulling power completely out.

It is not common to call out the height above ground level when landing in a small aircraft. The main reason for this is that there simply is no way to measure it:

A radio altimeter, which could directly measure the height, is not typically installed on a small aircraft.
A pressure altimeter is not accurate enough. With the correct QNH reference pressure and known airfield elevation (or you directly set QFE) one could read the height off the altimeter, but just one hPa difference (the range between two QNH values) corresponds to about 8m (26ft) height (this reduces to about 9ft when using inHg instead of hPa). And this is before taking instrument errors or any time delay into account.

The RETARD callout in particular is only used on Airbus aircraft because the autothrottle works differently than in other aircraft:

A more conventional aircraft (like any Boeing) uses a servo motor to move the thrust levers when autothrottle is engaged. These will be used to automatically retard the thrust levers when landing, so no pilot input is necessary (see this answer for more details).
On an Airbus, the physical thrust levers do not move with A/THR engaged. They typically remain in the CLB (climb) detent during the flight. When landing, the pilots have to manually retard the thrust levers to the IDLE detent. The callout exists to remind the pilot flying of this (see this question for more details).

When landing a Cessna 172 you should already have one hand on the throttle, so there is no need for a reminder. Additionally (as noted by ymb1 in the comments), reducing throttle at 20ft height is probably not what you want to do in a C172.

I would disagree a bit.  For me, the main reason not to call out stuff in a small plane is that I'm usually the only one there, and I've not gotten to the point of talking to myself that much :-)

@jamesqf In fairness, OP describes a situation in which they are two persons in a simulated airplane. So it's probably more similar to what it would be flying either two pilots together, or one student pilot and one instructor. Especially in the latter case, saying what you're doing can have significant benefit even if there's no specific need for any given callout. (One time for me, at one point when on final I decided to go around, but my instructor misinterpreted that as me pushing the throttle in by mistake and took action to correct that perceived mistake. It worked out, but bummed me.)

(That's not to say I disagree with the point @jamesqf is making; just that I can see situations, such as that described by OP in this case, where some callouts -- not necessarily specific heights -- can be beneficial.)

@a CVn: Sure, and if I'm taking a check ride, or have an interested passenger, I often tell them what I'm doing.  But that's considerably different from the situation in an airliner, where you have two pilots who need to communicate.  (Or at least that's my understanding.  I don't happen to have an Airbus handy to practice on :-()  So the OP's friend is doing something entirely inappropriate for a 172, both because it's not generally going to be needed, and because what he's calling out is not applicable to landing a 172.

Calling out stuff to yourself can be a useful safety check and helpful in learning; see Japan's practice of Point and Call for railway operations, and some have applied it to aviation. See also here. Even if you're the only one there, talking to yourself can cue you to to focus on checking something more conscientiously.

@ZachLipton Definitely. I do that a lot these days, myself; my usual callouts on final go something like "runway - still free - airspeed - good - glidepath - good - flaps - set" (at least in the airplane I fly, full flaps for landing are set during final; the base is flown with reduced flaps for a flaps-down landing) followed by (on the radio) "airport, XXX, final YY touch-and-go/full-stop/whatever" as appropriate. It serves both as a reminder to myself, as well as telling whoever is in the other seat that I am conscious of those things. Heck, I even do it when I'm simulator flying at home.

@jamesqf Right. Like I said, some callouts can be beneficial, but I don't see specific heights being one of them in typical GA airplanes. The fact that there's no reliable way to measure height above ground in most such airplanes is just icing on the cake in my mind; even if the called-out figure is accurate, it's still not useful. And short final is one time when at least I would really want to restrict callouts to only those that are truly, strictly necessary. "Go around, deer!" would be. "20 feet" isn't.

he argues that we still need to do it to remember to reduce throttle and flare. Is he right? Would this be acceptable in a real lesson?

If you (for any value of "you") need a reminder for that, then you shouldn't be flying. Seriously. I suppose an instructor could accept needing to call it out or even do it themselves (while the student is following along) the first few times, but reducing power and initiating the flare at the correct point would be something a student would be expected to get the hang of fairly quickly. It doesn't need to be perfect early on, but it should be about right.
Look at it this way. In a small piston-engine airplane, the typical procedure for getting down on the ground after the turn to final is to establish yourself on or maintain an established proper glidepath while maintaining proper lateral position, correcting for wind if necessary; get to a low altitude roughly above but not before the threshold of the runway, with a moderate sink rate; and once you pass the threshold of the runway, flare to reduce to landing speed and arrest the descent, with the aim of touching down at landing speed, with basically zero vertical speed and aligned with the runway.
There's a million variations to this depending on the specifics of the airplane and the runway, and an instructor would help you work out the quirks of handling the particular model you're flying, but that's the gist of it.
To reduce power and flare are absolute cornerstones to getting down on the ground. It's not something that should need a reminder from a second person. It's not like there's a whole lot else going on in the cockpit at the time. (By the time you turn base, you should basically be set up for a landing.)
If you set the wheels on the ground with the engine power in, then at the very least you're going to use up more runway than you need to get stopped. Any good instructor would work with you to break that habit, because sooner or later you're going to be doing short-field landings, or even short-field stop-and-gos. In small airplanes, it's perfectly sufficient, and often encouraged, to fly a significant portion of the landing at a glide. (One instructor I've flown with likes to fly the whole base and final legs at glide, with the engine at idle, and to only push in a little throttle to correct if you end up low as a result.)
A more useful callout in a small airplane would probably be whether you're climbing above or sinking through a proper glidepath, as defined by touchdown on a desired point of the runway with no further glidepath adjustments. (I'm assuming here that your approach speed is well above stall speed and not higher than marginally below a limit speed, which may or may not be the case depending on the aircraft, its load, and configuration at the time; if your approach speed is close to stall speed or close to a limit speed, that's another thing to keep a very close eye on.) However, that's your <> responsibility as pilot, and likely also pilot in command, to judge correctly! Relying on another person in the airplane to make that judgement means you're losing valuable moments before correcting the error, even if that person reaches the same conclusion that you would at the same time you do, because that other person needs to (1) recognize the situation, (2) realize you're not correcting, (3) articulate the need to correct the situation, and (4) wait for you to take corrective action. This should rather be (1) recognize the situation, and (2) take corrective action.

More generally, if you (again for any value of "you") want to simulate flying an Airbus, then simulate flying an Airbus. Don't simulate flying a small single-engine piston propeller plane and pretend it's a commercial jetliner. If your simulator of choice doesn't offer Airbus models and you want to simulate flying an Airbus, get one that does offer Airbus models. (FlightGear is free and open source, hardly horrible, comes precompiled for Windows 7 and newer, and has a large selection of aircraft including the A300, A320 family, A340-600 and A380. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the modelling, though.)

You are asking: "Should I keep flying with something that annoys me and puts me off"?
Answer: No
I am guessing that you are aiming for realism: In reality, if this annoying something were part of the C172 checklist, then you should not fly the airplane again until you had found a way to overcome your annoyance. If it weren't part of the standard then it shouldn't be included in your landing procedure in the first place.
Also, in reality, you would not allow your friend's argumentation to influence your safety (concentrating on irrelevant callouts such as RETARD takes away from your total capacity to handle the landing or an emergency).

I guess it depends whether or not you feel this information is at all helpful.
The best thing for both of you would be to take a lesson in a Cessna 172.
It is extremely important that ubiquitous knowledge of flight can get you in a lot of trouble if
you are not familiar with the type of aircraft you are flying.
Specifically and to the point, a light GA aircraft is not landed by rote, or by a standard glide
angle.  What you want more than anything else is a standardized APPROACH SPEED for safety, and trim your plane as early as possible (like as soon as you turn to base leg).
Your co- pilot can keep an eye on the airspeed indicator.
Rounding out over the runway will depend a lot on your glide angle, which will depend on your flaps setting.  It will be a bit steeper at flaps 30 than clean, so you round a little earlier,
with the goal of leveling around 10-15 feet AGL.  Then, cut power (if any is in) and gently flare to land as speed bleeds off.
If you have power in, removing it before rounding could cause the plane to sink and pancake
into the runway.  Round first (which will start to slow you down), power off, flare and land.
Keep in mind your Cessna can glide in all the way from downwind (at the same approach speed), with more of a chance to make the runway in the event of an engine failure.
This is another difference from multiengined you may wish to consider.
It might be more appropriate to call out "ROUND", or "UP, UP" (with elevator).

I would honestly like the person who downvoted this answer to step forward and explain why.  Cutting power to a single prop GA changes airflow over the control surfaces.  Rounding an aircraft requires a pitch change.  The dangers of doing this simultaneously are obvious.  This answer is based on over 40 lessons with an instructor in a Cessna 172.

Furthermore, cutting the power will increase the rate of descent just at the time it needs to be decreased to round out.  This simply is not the same technique as landing a jet powered 350 ton aircraft.


text:
Can the divergence Mach be greater than 1?
I know that by decreasing t/c and increasing the sweep angle it is possible to increase the divergence Mach, but what is the limit?
I am calculating the Mach for a wing with a quarter chord sweep angle $\Lambda_{1/4}=54 ^\circ$. According to Denish Howe (Aircraft Conceptual Design) the “two-dimensional” divergence Mach can be found with Korn equation and then converted in a "three-dimensional" Mach considering the sweep with the following equation:
$$ \frac{M_{3d}}{M_{2d}}=\frac{1}{(\cos\Lambda_{1/4})^{0.6}} $$
 This led me to a divergence Mach of 1.19 which doesn't seem reasonable at all.
However, if the assumption that only Mach perpendicular flow affects the shock is maintained, this might be possible with very high sweep angles. What is the limit of this assumption?

I've converted your formula to MathJax for readibility purposes, more info on how to use MathJax here

The value should be above 1, as sweep delays the onset of wave drag (increases the Mach number at which wave drag increases rapidly)

I'm unfamiliar with your source, but is it taking into account the shift in centre of pressure that occurs at the sonic transition? If not, then the result is only valid for whichever regime it was postulated in.

The general perspective
I have so far seen multiple definitions for what "divergence Mach number" actually means (and worked with several of them), but it's usually tied to some empirical criterion with regards to drag increase with Mach number ($\frac{dc_D}{dM}$).
This means it's not telling you the Mach number at which shocks start to appear, but the Mach number at which somebody decided that the drag caused by those shocks is becoming "serious". It therefore stands to reason that this criterion will be different for different types of applications.
This means: For a given definition of divergence Mach number, and using suitably designed profiles, it may very well be possible to achieve divergence Mach numbers greater than 1 -- this means essentially that the shocks which form while accelerating towards and beyond the speed of sound are considered mild enough to not cause significantly more drag than would be expected if they did not occur -- again, for a given value of "significant".
The physics
The critical Mach number of a wing profile can, as you know, be increased by wing sweep. For an infinite, untapered wing at least, only the inflow component normal to the wing sweep line determines the profile pressure distribution. At 54° sweep, the effective Mach number is therefore just 58.8% (=cos(54°)) of the flight Mach number -- it'd be pretty easy to not even have shocks at M=1.0! However, real wings are never infinite (and rarely untapered), so there will be at least one shock at the tip/midsection/fuselage junction. That section at least will "see" the real Mach number, and "communicate" it at least some way to its neighbouring sections. That's one reason why Howe's equation has the exponent on the cosine.
Prelim design
Reality is a bit more complicated than the Howe's preliminary design equation, of course, because using the c/4 line assumes that that's roughly where the shock ends up forming. If you have e.g. a delta wing with an unswept trailing edge, the further downstream the shock ends up, the less swept it will be, and the stronger. So it is based not just on flow physics but also on some assumptions about the ability and methods of the people designing the wing profile (in turn probably based on previously-built and tested wings)

Good answer, welcome to the site.

Torenbeek section 7.5b deals with the design of swept back wings for supercritical speeds:

In the case of positive $\alpha$, regions of supersonic flow will appear on the upper surface when $M_{cr}$ is exceeded. As soon as this region terminates in a shock wave of appreciable strength, which thickens the boundary layer, the drag increases noticeably. The drag-divergence (or drag-critical) Mach nurnber is defined as $M_∞$ for which: $\Delta C_{d_p} = 0.002$

This would be the 2-dimensional drag divergence number. Then in section 7.5e the 3-dimensional effects are discussed:

More advanced sections may also be tackled by introducing a Mach number $M^*$, which represents the extent of supersonic flow at the condition of drag divergence.
The factor $M^*$ in (7-36) has no physical meaning and is merely a figure defining the aerodynamic sophistication employed to obtain supercritical flow at the design condition. Good results are obtained by taking:

$M^*$ = 1.0, conventional airfoils; maximum t/c at about .30c
$M^*$ = 1.05, high speed (peaky) airfoils, 1960-1970 technology
$M^*$ = 1.12 to 1.15, supercritical airfoils

So yes, 3-dimensional drag divergence numbers . M=1 are found, but have no physical meaning. Not surprising when we realise that at M=1 there will definitely be shockwaves everywhere at the leading edges of the aircraft.


text:
Why B-52 engines produce lots of smoke only during take-off?
During the flight it seems there is no smoke, it's only during takeoff. Here is an example

This question explains that smoke is caused by unburnt fuel but why is there so much more during takeoff?

How is this a dupe? The top answer of the suggested dupe says smoke is caused by water injection and inefficient engines not burning all the fuel. That explains what causes smoke but it doesn't explain why there is significant difference in visible smoke between takeoff and cruise, i.e. what changes to stop the conditions that cause smoke?

Half a paragraph in the second answer on another question vs the proper set of answers like the ones given below that we can vote pragmatically on?

There are a few reasons.
The first is that the engines run more efficiently when the aircraft is moving. As the aircraft moves faster, it's easier for it to get more air into the engine, which helps it run more efficiently.
The second reason is even simpler: like most aircraft a B-52 only rarely runs at full throttle. Most of the time that it's cruising, the throttles are backed off to just overcome the drag and maintain the current speed and altitude (though flying at terrain avoidance level is a rather different story).
The last reason is that the larger amount of smoke is largely an illusion. When the aircraft is moving, it's actually still generating close to the same amount of smoke. We're seeing the smoke from running the engines at full throttle for roughly a minute. During one minute of normal flight, it would generate somewhere close to the same amount of smoke--but instead of being concentrated in the 1 mile or so that we see here, it would be spread across something like 10 miles of sky. In addition, at altitude, you're a lot more likely to have much stronger winds, so exhaust from a minute ago will be relatively widely dispersed, rendering it much less visible than we see here (with air that looks like it's almost perfectly still).

add to this that in thinner air less fuel is burnt, so less smoke is created.

It's not an illusion. All older generation jet engines smoked like this at takeoff. Including those on DC-8s and B707.

@MikeSowsun: I'm not saying that the amount of smoke is an illusion. I'm saying that the apparent difference between take-off and normal flying is largely an illusion. Believe me, while I was in the Air Force I got to see (and hear) more B-52's and KC-135s than I care to remember, all up-close and deafening. That said, a B52-G (which did use water injection) was much worse.

All early generation jet engine smoke like this at take off. This includes B707 and DC-8 and many other jet aircraft of the 1960's.
Most airliners today have more efficient engine that do not smoke. The B-52 still uses older generation engines. All these older generation engines were designed when fuel was cheap. They were far less fuel efficient and the black smoke you see is mostly un-burned fuel.
Just Google smoky jet engines at takeoff and you will see what I mean.


text:
What max Mach number of the blade tips on Concorde's engines?
What was the maximum velocity and Mach speed of blade tips in Concorde's engines?

@mins this does ask what the mach speed is, which the other question doesn't. Subtle difference but still a difference.

@mins I’ve edited the question, thoughts?

@Notts90: I personally rejected your edit as it clearly modifies the initial question (and the possible answers). Now the question has been changed, I see that it's still covered by the same post. I'd prefer better answers to be added to the first question rather than being split between two questions.

@jjack: The linear speed of the blade is available in plain sight (340 m/s, which at sea level is exactly M 1) and results from a trivial multiplication of the perimeter by the angular speed. The bonus is the axial airspeed provided in the second answer (M .49). What does prevent you to read? Now there is a bit of velocity triangle calculation to be done in a better answer. Note that 'duplicate' doesn't refer to answers but to the questions themselves, whatever the answers currently are.


text:
What is the largest taildragger in history?
Large, modern multi-engine airplanes do mostly have the 'tricycle' landing gear type. But it hasn't always be the norm. I remember at least one big plane with 'conventional landing gear', the German four-engined FW 200 'Condor'...
But, was it the largest of them all...?

How is largest defined? MTOW?

Possibly Asiana 214. Granted, it wasn't supposed to be a tail dragger.

What is a taildragger/tricycle landing gear/conventional landing gear?

If you are going by MTOW, I believe that would be the Junkers Ju 390, which had a maximum takeoff weight of 75,500 kg.

Junkers Ju 390, By Bundesarchiv, Bild 141-0072 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Link
Sadly, only a couple of these were built. If you are going by the wingspan, that would be the Tupolev ANT-20 'Maksim Gorki', which had a wingspan of 63m

ANT-20, By Unknown - http://www.dkvnukovo.ru/photos/museum/photos/35.jpg, Public Domain, Link

They could have fitted probably 8 more people in if they had put seats and windows in those awesome wheel nacelles.  Probably no trolley service though. Cattle class for sure.

@Wossname: Most modern planes have huge empty spaces in the fuselage, which is already pressured. Those nacelles are most certainly not pressurized! I believe that most aircraft carrying capacity limits are due to mass (weight), not volume.

@dotancohen, I have much to learn.

@Wossname: Then I'm in good company, and we're both in the right place!

I love that photo of the ANT-20!

That Art Deco fuselage on the ANT-20 is pretty slick

@TomMcW, "Air Deco"  :)

@dotancohen, You wouldn't see windows like those on a pressurized cabin.  Wikipedia says the service ceiling for the ANT-20 was 4500 meters---just a smidge higher than you're allowed to take passengers in present day U.S.A. without giving them supplemental oxygen.

@jameslarge: You're right, even the sharp corners on the "cupola" at the top indicates that the cabin is unpressurized. As mentioned to Wossname, I too have a lot to learn!

I nominate the XB-15 heavy bomber prototype.

Wing span 45.43 m
Max. TO weight 32,139 kg

@ymb1 Yes but the production run of yours was 100% higher.

Oh c'mon Gorki looks great! :)


text:
If I were to scratch build a helicopter, as the manufacturer, would I need a pilot's license to fly it?
If I were to scratch build a helicopter, as the manufacturer, would I need a pilot's license to fly it while its in the experimental stage?  This is in the USA, but I'd be interested in how it plays out in other countries which are different

Depends on how big it is and how big of an engine. There are certain classes of ultralight that don't need a license. But let me say this... flying something you've built yourself without any training what-so-ever is asking for a page in the local obituary, or a Darwin award, especially when it comes to helicopters.

I appreciate your concern. Could you provide the different engine size classifications for the different classes?  Nothing I've read has indicated a helicopter can be classed as an ultra-light. This is more of a feeler question however I cannot ask the related questions to this one until this has an answer.

For example, the Mosquito XE is about the largest ultralight helicopter that does not require a pilots license to fly. Basically it has to be single seat and weigh less than 254lbs. You can read about the requirements in 14 CFR Part 103 Section 1

In EU you'd need a license to fly anything that has an engine

If I am not mistaken, no ultralight helo kit manufacturer will sell you all the parts you need to finish it without evidence of a minimum number of hours of flight training... There must be a good reason for that. :)

@gusto2 are not craft like microlights unlicenced?

@Baldrickk in EU (in most of the EU countries) all aircraft are licenced. I believe you may freely fly a paraglider and deltaglider, but always check local legislation.

Depends on what you build. It is possible to build a helicopter that qualifies as an ultralight, and thus no license needed.
If it exceeds the weight and power restrictions for an ultralight, then it is an experimental aircraft, that requires at least a solo ticket.
I would strongly suggest that rather than scratch build your own, an experience you might not survive, you take a look at what I'm currently lusting after:
Mosquito Helicopter
In kit form (which technically makes you the builder), it can be had in ultralight form, with limited range.
Or in experimental form with a more powerful 2 stroke engine and larger fuel capacity.
And finally, the (sigh) gas turbine powered version.
One advantage of building the experimental kit is: as the builder, you can perform all maintenance and the annual inspection yourself.
Another advantage of going the more capable experimental route is: you can log the hours.

Thank you for finally answering the question. I'm not looking at the ultralight class either. I am interested more in the utility of the craft and a single seat with next to no cargo capacity doesn't do that for me.

As long as you do understand that a true helicopter is a very complex machine. The penalty for failure during testing of self designed components is often death.

I believe that Darwin sorts out the people by the choices they make. I have no problem with this as long as they are the only people sorted. I think Our society pushes the risk out of everything and as as result people jump off of bridges with rubber bands tied to their ankles.

In Germany you cannot just start to build man-carrying aircraft. First you need to certify your development office with the LBA, the local version of the FAA. They will check if you have sufficiently trained experts on hand and that your processes are appropriate. For homebuilts, this responsibility is devolved to an association, the Oskar Ursinus Vereinigung, which will send experienced people over to check every step of your work. Also, the first flight has to be performed by a trained test pilot. They will put many roadblocks in your way to become an aviation martyr.


text:
Do helicopters carry radar equipment? Is so, where is it placed and what type is used?
Do helicopters carry radar equipment and if so, where is it? (e.g. in the nose section like a fixed-wing aircraft).
Also what type do they use? (e.g what type of radar would a maritime helicopter carry)

Most helicopter don't carry radar; there is no need for it.
In civil helicopters radar is typically used for weather detection. In most use cases there is not real need for it because helicopters are usually operating under daytime Visual Flight Rules (VFR) and are staying away from clouds. For maritime helicopters that are used in search and rescue operations or off-shore operations on oil-rigs, weather is often installed. The typical location is in a radome in the nose of the helicopter. Examples are the Honeywell Primus 660 or Rockwell Collins RTA-4100
Military helicopters use radar for detecting objects. Depending on the nature of the mission the helicopter is designed for, the radar is underneath (usually for navy operation, providing sea surface detection capabilities, see for example the navy version of the NH90) or on top of the rotor (to look over obstacles such a hills / trees  and provide fire control to their missiles). An example is the AN/APG-78 longbow fire control radar.

I guess I shouldn't have emphasised 'all'

:-) No worries, I'll expand my answer after I rephrase your question if that is ok by you.

Already have :-).

@sanchises Fixed, thanx!

or they hang it from the side, like the Royal Navy's (now afaik retired) AEW Seakings.


text:
What happens if a helicopter engine fails at 20,000 feet?
A fixed wing aircraft is able to glide in case of an engine failure and potentially land safely.
What would happen if a helicopter engine fails at high altitude?
Is it possibly to land it safely?

Look up "Auto rotation" or "autorotate" or other forms of those words. Helicopters don't just fall out of the sky (they also don't typically fly at 20,000 feet either).

As a helicopter pilot, I would say this is not a duplicate. It asks specifically about high altitude.  because of density altitude, a high altitude auto is much more dangerous. I edited the question to focus more on high altitude autos.

Hi.  Welcome to Aviation.SE.  I hope that your question gets re-opened if it is about high altitude autorotations.  An important point, which will make a big difference to the answers, is to edit your question to indicate whether you mean starting the auto at high altitude and finishing the auto at high altitude, e.g. 20,000 feet to 10,000 feet or 20,000 feet to 0 feet.

Does the helicopter you are asking about have one or two engines?

@ymb1 Agreed, voting to close.  Chopperman:  Altitude really doesn't make a difference, provided you have a enough space to actually perform an autorotate.  If your rotors can get enough grip on the air to climb that high, the air can get enough grip on your rotors to auto rotate them for you.

Yes. See the Wikipedia's article on autorotation!, which mentions a real-world example of the case you are describing:

The longest autorotation in history was performed by Jean Boulet in 1972 when he reached a record altitude of 12,440 m (40,814 ft) in an Aérospatiale Lama. Because of a −63 °C (−81.4 °F) temperature at that altitude, as soon as he reduced power the engine flamed out and could not be restarted. By using autorotation he was able to land the aircraft safely.

The biggest concern here is the disk loading of the helicopter's rotor - the greater the disk loading (the mass of the aircraft related to the rotor's area) the worse the autorotation capabilities. See this Google Books link for an in-depth discussion of the autorotation capabilities of different aircraft based on their characteristics.
The weight of the very rotor also plays a significant role here - the heavier the rotor, the more kinetic energy it stores, and the greater the probability of a successful entry into the autorotation state. See the Osprey's design, for example - it has light propellers on each wing which are practically unable to autorotate because of their small mass.
As you can see, the aforementioned helicopter - Aérospatiale Lama - is a light aircraft which is geared towards high altitudes - it has three propeller blades, which translates to low disk loading, and sufficiently heavy blades to allow easy entry and execution of the autorotation stage.

When a helicopters engine fails, it would start falling until Auto rotation kicks in.

Whether this happens and the pilot shuts off the engine or in the case of actual engine failure, once the engine drops below a certain number of revolutions per minute, relative to the rotor RPM rate, a special clutch mechanism, called a freewheeling unit, disengages the engine from the main rotor automatically.  This allows the main rotor to spin without resistance from the engine.

When you quote a source, please include a link to it if at all possible

'When you quote a source, please include a link to it.' There, fixed it for ya', @Pondlife.

This is a poor answer.  It starts falling (descending) when it loses the engine (unless there is some airspeed cushion to trade kinetic for potential energy), and while autorotating it continues to fall (autorotate).  This does not look like an expert answer.

Auto-rotation doesn't "kick in", its not something that happens automatically. Auto-rotation is a technique you perform to arrest your descent.


text:
What would happen if an airplane flew through a tornado?
I read a question which asked whether planes fly over hurricanes, so my question is what would happen if a low-flying commercial plane tried to fly through a tornado.
Assume that it's traveling at cruise speed.

Even if we accept the idea that a jet airliner might be flying near a thunderstorm, such aircraft do not travel at full speed at the altitude where tornadoes occur.

Lots of bad stuff. Flying at cruise speed at that altitude alone is enough to cause bad stuff, even without the tornado and other various bad things associated with the supercell that spawned the tornado. The degree of bad stuff caused by the tornado itself would highly depend on the tornado. EF-0 would probably add a bit of turbulence for a second or two. One of those crazy half-mile-wide wedge-shaped EF-5s would probably rip the aircraft apart and distribute pieces of it over the next several miles of its track.

Why would you want to commit multiple omicide?

I'm not sure how to respond to your question so I won't answer.  The question itself sounds more like research because aviation is about safety.

There have been quite a few midair collisions involving a Tornado. In all cases neither aircraft survived. It typically involves the tornado flying through the other plane, not vice versa. I'll get my coat...

Most pilots have to learn about the weather before they get their pilot's certificate/license.  Part of learning about weather is learning about avoiding weather, and paying attention to Weather Warnings and Severe Weather Warnings, and updates.  The assumption that a pilot would try to fly through a tornado, on purpose, when Severe Turbulence is Thunderstorms is generally avoided, and a Tornado makes Sever Turbulence look like a zephyr of wind, is puzzling.  What research did you do before asking this question?

It depends on the strength of the tornado and other variables, but in most cases, a plane Vs tornado will end very very badly for the aircraft and its occupants in a low altitude high speed scenario.
A good example would be the NLM CityHopper Flight 431, a Fokker F-28 that flew into a thunderstorm 8 minutes into takeoff and crashed after the wing was torn off. From the summary of accident report at aviationsafety.net:

At 17:12 the aircraft entered a tornado, which resulted in loads on the airframe increasing to +6.8 G and -3,2 G. The right wing was bent upwards followed by a severe downward sweep. This compromised the structural integrity of the wing, causing a large portion of the outer wing to separate in an upward and rearward motion. Control was lost and the aircraft impacted a railway bridge inverted.

Everyone abroad the aircraft perished. FAA is pretty blunt about flying near one:

Pilots should observe the following rules for any flight routed even potentially near actual or possible thunderstorm activity:
• Avoid all thunderstorms.

And also,

Although pilots have flown through limited state thunderstorms with little or no damage to the aircraft or passengers, these pilots should consider themselves extremely fortunate to be alive.

(emphasis original).
Note: I've used both thunderstorms and tornadoes here. weather.about.com defines them as:

Thunderstorm: A storm (produced by a cumulonimbus cloud) that includes rain showers, lightning, and thunder.
Tornado: A violently rotating column of air that extends down from the base of a thunderstorm to the ground.

I'm frankly surprised that thunderstorms cause so much grief for planes.

The energy contained in even a small thunderstorm is staggering.  I have been in one.  It is not a place for airplanes.

@acpilot Just out of curiosity, what on earth were you doing there?

A 24 year old low time freight pilot will take risks that older pilots in better paying jobs will not.  Basically, it boils down to the idea that lowtimers will gamble just about anything for that first 1000hr of turbine PIC.  Green and yellow returns, by the way, can be more violent that red and flashing purple.

@acpilot bag of luck vs bag of experience comes to mind.

Agree.  That job filled my bag of experience with some gems. Also, I made $144 that day! Totally worth it!


text:
What would happen if I exceeded mach 1 over a regulated area?
What would happen if I exceeded mach 1 over a regulated area? Are there any penalties in place for this violation?
Would ATC actually know I’m flying supersonic or would they have to go out of their way to check my groundspeed and work out my approximate air speed?

I suspect that buzzing Heathrow tower at 800MPH would result in you being shot down with a missile.

Since you've mentioned regulations, please tell us which country you're asking about: regulations, penalties etc. are different everywhere.

You may specify the regulated airspace and the jurisdiction

Just to debunk a common misunderstanding: air traffic controllers are not police officers. We're here to help you, the pilot. Obviously if anyone (including us) break any rules - by accident or otherwise - we have to report it, but we do so for the purpose of improving safety, not for the purpose of punishing anyone.

It would be a violation of 14 CFR 91.817

§ 91.817 Civil aircraft sonic boom. (a) No person may operate a civil
  aircraft in the United States at a true flight Mach number greater
  than 1 except in compliance with conditions and limitations in an
  authorization to exceed Mach 1 issued to the operator under appendix B
  of this part.

It would be extremely easy to track such an aircraft, and the pilot would be dealt with upon landing.

This doesn’t actually answer the question of what would happen/what the penalty would be.

Depending on the place and altitudes this took place at, the FAA would certainly cite you on 91.817 and 91.13 careless and reckless operation, and may recommend disciplinary action, including suspension or revocation of airman certificates and ratings.

Well, they might well find out what you did, but it won't be from ATC radar that they get the first clue. ATC radar wouldn't catch it, since they see ground speed and know neither your head/tail wind component nor the exact temperature at your altitude (which determines the speed of sound). If you're flying SR-71 speeds, then yeah they'd notice, but the difference between M 0.95 and M 1.05 isn't enough that they'd see it, or care.
You'd be far more likely to be "busted" based on noise complaints from the ground, which could be followed up by checking the ATC replay to determine who was flying "there" at that time.
But if nobody from the ground complains about the boom, the chance that radar by itself would catch a slightly supersonic excursion is pretty remote.

This isn't true if you have Mode S EHS or ADS-B, both of which downlink Mach/IAS. The former is required for larger aircraft in Western Europe, the latter is a FAA requirement by 2020.

As an ATCO, if you turn IAS/Mach datum off from Mode S, trust in your answer to the question "report Mach number" is all I can do, as long as you aren't catching yr preceding traffic flying @ same mach # !!!!
But I am still unable to guess if you are @ .90 or 1.01.
Happy new 2019